Pacing benchmarks?

CadLawSchooler

Hi everyone! Does anyone have benchmarks to hit for pacing in each of the sections? At what minute mark should one aim to be at the end of 10 LR questions, 20 questions? At what minute mark should we look to be at the end of the first RC passage and it’s questions, the second, etc? And similarly for games? Of course, it depends on question/passage difficulty, target scores, etc., but benchmarks to aim for would be very helpful. If this has been discussed elsewhere, sorry for the repeat, would someone be able to point me to it? Thank you to the 7Sage community!

canihazJD

Shooting for a pace of about a minute per question average has served me well. So 10 in 10, 15 in 15, etc.

giulia.pines

@canihazJD I've wondered about this a lot too. Does that mean you're trying to shore up your time for the last 10 or so questions, assuming they will be hardest, or do you finish the 25-ish questions in 25 minutes and spend the remainder going back over ones that were difficult? I find that if I have time to rethink questions on PTs I very often second-guess myself and change them to WRONG answers so I've questioned whether time left over to review is really beneficial to me.

CadLawSchooler

@"giulia.pines" that’s such a good questions. I’m looking forward to hearing what others think. @canihazJD thank you, this is a useful benchmark!

canihazJD

@"giulia.pines" said:
@canihazJD I've wondered about this a lot too. Does that mean you're trying to shore up your time for the last 10 or so questions, assuming they will be hardest, or do you finish the 25-ish questions in 25 minutes and spend the remainder going back over ones that were difficult? I find that if I have time to rethink questions on PTs I very often second-guess myself and change them to WRONG answers so I've questioned whether time left over to review is really beneficial to me.

You're banking time to revisit the harder questions that you skip and/or flag. If you maintain a pace of a minute per question or better, you should have at least 9-10 minutes left over to do this. You are trying to pick up the easier points first, maximizing how efficiently you are using your time. If you felt confident about a question, then there is no need to go back to it. If it was flagged or skipped, go back to it. For questions we just did not get on the first round, we want to have identified the issue as soon as possible and skipped ASAP. In addition to making best use of our time, for harder questions, a break from the content may be something that is necessary for you to get the question correct. Sometimes we just need that distance form the question... the second time you attempt a question it is usually significantly easier.

Regarding changing answers, we want to make sure we are never just switching choices willy nilly... this is not a test where our intuitions tend to serve us well. You need to be able to answer the following questions:

What is it about the AC I picked that I thought was correct, that I now think is wrong (or what is wrong with it that I didn't notice before)?

What is it about the AC I didn't pick that I thought was wrong (or didn't see) that I now think is correct?

If you can't answer those two questions, I'd consider changing an answer a bit more. At the very least you need to clearly see why your original choice is now wrong. We want our decisions to be based on articulable reasons. Something I like to tell students is that we don't just let our brains wander off and do their own thing... "oh this AC sounds good!" Our brain is lazy and likes to take too many shortcuts. So we have to confirm what we think we know by articulating our reasoning.

Edit: https://7sage.com/why-you-have-to-skip-questions-on-the-lsat/

CadLawSchooler

@canihazJD wow! This gives me a very different way to approach LR. I sort of approached it by thinking give a question your all during your first attempt and that’s that. But the prospect of banking time to go back to it for a second take and having to articulate why you’re changing an answer, if you do, is a game changer. I’ll be trying this during my forthcoming drills and PTs. Thanks a lot!

giulia.pines

Thanks @canihazJD that makes a lot of sense. I was definitely answering "willy-nilly" in the past and will try to be more intentional with skipped questions now!